Use the source, Luke?

This may appear as a bit of a conundrum, or at least the musings of a confused teenage mind in the body of a man in his thirties — but I love source-based distributions: the philosophy, the freedom, the configurability, and the closeness to the operating system one gets when using them.

I am, primarily, a Gentoo user though I’ve used more distributions that I care to count ever since Slackware came in floppy images and RedHat had its ‘RedHat Redneck’ install language — oh for shame RedHat, dropping this in favour of the corporate image? You’re no fun anymore!

I digress — though I love Gentoo, I also hate it with a vengeance. I’m not talking small time peeves here, like the way Krispy Kremes icing gets all over your fingers (and by extension, clothes). I’m talking the type of frustration that is expressed in multitudes of expletives, some of which would make the profinsaurus cry.

Why? Because, by definition and by nature, a source-based distribution is its own worst enemy.